St. George’s Day is one of the most revered spring holidays in Bulgaria. The holiday is connected with the awakening of nature, with the aroma of flowers, grasses and herbs. It is celebrated on the day of the Christian Saint George, who in popular belief is the patron saint of shepherds and flocks. On St. George’s Day, a sacrifice must be offered – a Qurban in honor of the saint. In Razlog, the traditional Razlog Qurban is prepared. Learn more about the holiday and the traditional recipe.
St. George is one of the most revered Bulgarian saints. His holiday on May 6 marks the beginning of a new agricultural year and nature begins to awaken to new life. In folklore, the year is divided into two: summer – from St. George’s Day to St. Dimitrov’s Day and winter – from St. Dimitrov’s Day to St. George’s Day. In many places in Bulgaria, as well as in the Balkans, St. George and St. Dimitar are considered brothers who have divided the year. St. George is associasted with the shepherds, the flocks, the fields and the future harvest. It is believed that if it rains on St. George’s Day, it will ensure fertility – every drop on this day is a coin.
Early in the morning on St. George’s Day, young women and children gather herbs: geranium, nettle, garlic and others. They weave wreaths with them to decorate the lamb and the cauldron for the first milk.
Ritual breads are kneaded for the holiday – called “kosharka” or “ovcharnik” They depict a shepherd, sheep, barn, shepherd’s gag. Apart from the people, the sheep are also fed with ritual bread.
Milk and cheese are not eaten until St. George’s Day, as the milk is not blessed by St. George. That is why a very important moment in the holiday is the ritual milking of the sheep, which was the first to give birth to a lamb during the year or which came out of the pen first. In the village of Eleshnitsa, Razlog region, for example, until St. George’s Day no one in the village milked the sheep and goats and no one dared to eat milk because it was believed that it was not “baptized”. The baptism consisted in the fact that on the eve of the holiday the first milking took place in a cauldron or in another vessel. It had to be decorated with flowers tied with red thread, in which there was always geranium.
A central moment in the St. George’s Day ritual is the slaughtering of a male lamb for sacrifice, which no one in Razlog dared to do before the holiday. The ritual requires a wreath of St. George’s flowers to be placed on its head, wrapped in a mulberry, pear or apple stick with red thread. In the past, the winding of the wreath was accompanied by songs and games. A candle was tangled in the horns of the lamb, and the priest or the oldest man in the family smoked it three times with incense. Elsewhere, the priest reads a prayer and feeds it with grass, bran and salt, and perhaps bread. The lamb is most often the first male lamb born during the year. Its blood is used to smear the children’s cheeks for health, as well as the door sills and corners of the rooms. Usually the lamb is roasted whole in an oven and then carried to a church to be consecrated. Then a village meal is made somewhere outside the village, on greenery, which the priest incenses. The bones of the lamb are most often buried in the fields or in an anthill – “to multiply the sheep like ants.” In more recent times, after the church, people who celebrate their name day welcome guests at home, serving them rakia.
Both on Easter and St. George’s Day, the young people make swings – they tie them to a tall deciduous tree and the boys swing the girls. Songs with love lyrics are sung, as well as choruses in which the names of two young people who like each other are intertwined. In the village of Eleshnitsa, girls and boys arrange swings, and the swinging is accompanied by songs and jokes that make fun of them. And in the evening people sing in the neighborhoods.
In some parts of Bulgaria, flowers and rings are “napiavat” on the holiday in order to foretell the future or for marriage, similar to St. Basil’s Day and St. Enyov’s Day. This is exactly the tradition in Razlog. Apart from the fact that on St. George’s Day a fair is held in the area of ”St. George”, which is located half an hour walk from Razlog, the ritual “Topene na kitki” (Dipping Flowers) is performed. On the evening before the holiday (May 5), the girls secretly gather to put flowers in a clay pot – a pot, with “mulchana” water (brought in complete silence). The pot must spend the night under a rose bush, covered with an apron – “prescutnik”. The flowers are marked in different ways – with a ring, a cross, a coin, etc., so that each girl can recognize her own the next day. Along with the flowers is placed geranium, rose petal and the so-called “ravunski” ring – means a ring with which a bride is married. In fact, it is the first to be put in the pot by a little girl with living parents. Before releasing the ring, she crosses herself and says a prayer.
On St. George’s Day at noon, after the liturgy in the church, the girls take out the pot from under the rose, dance around it and sing local songs. After unscrewing it, a girl sprays everyone with the water. Then the same little girl who released the “ravunski” ring take out the out the flowers one by one. Everyone sing, and the girls know their flowers and judge their fate by the content of the song. A new song is sung before each flower extraction.
If they sing the song about a girl who ran away it means that the girl whose flower is, will soon get married. If a song about a shepherd in the mountains is sung, the girl will marry a shepherd and so on…
This tradition of dipping St. George’s flowers has never been interrupted, for example, in the Razlog village of Bachevo. It is typical for some settlements in Razlog that the women who took part in the ritual wash their faces with the May dew. In the past, they even rolled on it for health and strength. Also in the past, in the afternoon, young brides, old grandmothers and other women went to the upper cemetery, called the White Cemetery, at the consecration of St. George. There is today a small cut stone and a small upper pedestal on a stone column. The priest performed a prayer, after which a common table was placed on the green lawn. The women gave away what was brought, and then a dance was played.
When the holiday was over, everyone went to the village and the singers sang a song:
Oĭ le ti, sveti G’orge!
Sveti G’orge kone kove,
Kone kove sŭs zlatni pl’ochi,
S zlatni pl’ochi, zlatni klintsi.
I otide da obidi ikineto.
Esen’oto e izginalo,
A letnoto — ne poniknalo.
Zdrav otide sveti G’orge,
Zdrav otide, bolen doĭde.
Another typical custom of Razlog on St. George’s Day is the making of a Qurban (traditional dish) for the saint in the temple in the town, with the same name. The Qurban is for health and blessing. Usually many people gather to celebrate the holiday. They leave products or money for the traditional dish. Several women from Razlog take care of its preparation, who have been doing it for years and passing on skills and recipes to younger ones in order to preserve the tradition. At noon the Qurban is consecrated and distributed to all present at the feast.